The president of Rutgers University has unveiled a detailed plan to increase oversight of the university’s athletics department, which has come under scrutiny in recent months for spending practices in its football program, The Star-Ledger reported.

Earlier this month, the newspaper reported, Rutgers hired Richard J. Costello, a former athletics director at Delaware State University, for a new post that will directly oversee the athletics department’s day-to-day administrative and budget operations. But in announcing the new oversight plan on Monday to the university’s governing board, Richard L. McCormick, Rutgers’s president, has taken the scrutiny a step further.

Among the plan’s provisions are an expansion of the university’s audit department, a requirement that all future athletics-sponsorship deals undergo legal review before approval, and new policies to prevent conflicts of interest in contracts and procurement. The plan also calls for a “university-wide review” of all “high-level” compensation packages to determine which ones need direct approval by the board.

What’s more, the current financial crisis has placed the $102-million expansion of the university’s football stadium in jeopardy, university officials told the board. Mr. McCormick did not provide details, and other officials said only that they were examining their options, the newspaper reported.

This past summer, a series of articles by The Star-Ledger on the cost of big-time sports at Rutgers reported that the state university had failed to publicly disclose three key contract changes for its football program. The deals gave the team’s head coach, Greg Schiano, an additional $250,000 in undisclosed payments, increased the annual salary budget for assistant football coaches to $1.5-million from $1.25-million, and allowed Mr. Schiano unlimited use of jet and helicopter services for university business, the newspaper reported.

In July, Mr. McCormick told The Star-Ledger that university officials were not trying to hide the terms of Mr. Schiano’s compensation. “If you want to have an outstanding program — and it was determined a long time ago that Rutgers wanted to do that — then you have to pay the price,” he said. “You’ve got to pay to play, pardon the New Jersey expression.”

But on Monday, while explaining the new oversight plan during a board meeting on the Camden campus, Mr. McCormick struck a different tone. “We’ve learned some things in the last few months,” he said, according to The Star-Ledger. “More steps are in progress and likely more to come. This is an ongoing challenge that we take very seriously.”

An additional challenge is the Rutgers football team itself, which has a 1-5 record this fall. —Libby Sander